Monkey trouble: HC chides govt for only focussing on setting up committees

The Centre was today pulled up by the Delhi High Court for being focused on setting up committees to tackle the city's simian trouble rather than taking steps to initiate the release of its consignment of oral immune-contraception vaccine from the customs.

"We are sick and tired of hearing about committees. Instead of getting your consignment (of vaccine) released, you are telling us committees have been set up," a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said to the environment ministry's Wildlife Institute of India (WII).

The WII had imported the oral immune-contraception vaccine for testing it on simians.

The court said the issue of rising monkey population in the national capital has been pending before it since 2001. It said with the passage of time, the simian numbers have attained "unmanageable" proportions, but there was no solution to the problem yet.

"We want action and not reports or committees," it noted.

The HC directed the WII, represented by central government standing counsel Ripudaman Bhardwaj, to take all necessary steps to get the consignment released within 15 days.

It listed the matter for further hearing on May 24.

During the hearing, senior advocate Sanjay Jain, who is the amicus curiae in the matter, told the court that till the vaccine was imported, tested and put into use, there had to be some interim measure for controlling the monkey population.

He suggested implementation of a method adopted in Agra, where the monkeys were caught in cages and surgically sterilised before being released back in the same area.

The bench, however, disagreed with the suggestion, stating that the method would result in the sterilised simians becoming isolated from their herd and that such monkeys became more violent.

The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), whose assistance had been sought by the court in the matter, said oral contraception may also not be the answer.

The court asked the ICMR and other stakeholders to sit together and come at a viable solution.

Advocate Meera Bhatia, who had filed a PIL in 2001 seeking directions to the authorities to take steps to deal with the menace of monkeys and dogs in the city, also underlined the need for some interim measure to check the rising population of monkeys till the vaccine was put into use.